A list of letter-writing resources for the creative and hopeful heart

A little bit of paper with a postage stamp on it goes a really, really long way

I love the meditative process of writing letters

and postcards and sending little notes and poems and care packages in the mail. I love collecting seeds and magazine clippings and slipping them into envelopes. I love sealing them with wax and stickers. I love collecting bougie greeting cards and letterpress prints. I love buying bags of miscellaneous cards and postcards at Goodwill. I love it all. It’s the sweetest little prayer, over and over.

I put together a list of some spaces and places where both letters and letter correspondences can take place with strangers, which is a mode of letter-writing that I especially love. I find there’s something really meditative and intentional about writing a letter to a stranger. How do I address you as a whole person with my whole person, while we know so little (or nothing) of each other’s person? I am so interested in this question. How can I extend my humanness toward yours? How can I personify you without seeing your face? What does it mean to spend time—in the chaos and strain and work and business of my day, week, life—connecting to a stranger? How could this soften me?

I wanted to take the time to gather up some resources and put them all in one place, for you and for me. I’ve participated in some of these projects myself, and I hope this small but mighty and non-exhaustive resource list proves valuable to you.

---

Postcrossing is a connective database that allows you to make a profile and write postcards lottery-style. You’re assigned strangers from all over the world to send postcards to, and after your first postcard is received, you're in the running to receive them yourself. So far, I've sent postcards to Germany, France, Finland, the Netherlands, and the US.

More Love Letters is a personal favorite and the impetus for a lot of my own work. Each month there are new letter requests posted on behalf of someone collecting a bundle of mail for a loved one (back in the day they would only post about three requests per month, but the project has grown substantially over the years). The requests are displayed for the entire month, and organizers ask that the letters be postmarked by the final day of the month.

Letters for Our Elders operates on a rotating monthly list of letter requests, very similar to More Love Letters. People nominate the elders in their lives for letters, and a limited amount are chosen per month. Send a personalized letter to the person collecting the surprise bundle of mail for the recipient. No glitter allowed! An actual rule on their website.

Letters Against Isolation provides access to a portal linking you to seniors across the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK waiting to receive letters. Some are individual folks; some are care homes, centers, and facilities that have requested their residents be recipients.

Letters Against Depression is a 501c3 with over 10,000 volunteers sending letters to folks with depression and other mental health circumstances who have signed up to receive them. I was a volunteer for this project many years ago. “Your letter saved my life today…” —Cassidy, Tennessee

Letters for Change is a project that links letter-writers with inmates. It is a registered charity, and provides verification for volunteer hours if needed.

Prisoner Correspondence Project is a “solidarity project” connecting queer and gender variant inmates with queer and gender variant non-inmates, as pen pals.

Black and Pink is a similar project to PCP, while extending to people living with HIV/AIDS. Their site offers a lot of helpful tips and reminders when it comes to writing to incarcerated people in the prison system.

Letters for Liberation is a “volunteer-run penpaling collective” for incarcerated people. They require that, before entering into a pen pal relationship, each volunteer letter writer participate in a mandatory training Zoom session.

Wire of Hope is a prison pen pal program created by two friends who, after spending years corresponding with people in the prison system, felt that there must be a bigger way to offer support to incarcerated people.

The Letter Project is a correspondence project for and by (as far as I can tell, cis) girls and women. An application must be submitted and accepted before you can make a profile.

The Letter Exchange is a subscription-based pen pal program that allows people to find “interesting correspondents” via “listings”. It’s got a pretty old school vibe and has been going strong since 1982.

Global Penfriends is a family-friendly all-ages pen pal exchange championing friendship, and culture and language exchanges.

---

For the crafty letter-writer types

I want to mention that I have a sliding scale membership subscription with a tier called Crow’s Nest, in which you sign up and I, in return, send you an envelope in the mail each month filled with postcards, greeting cards, stickers, textured paper, bookmarks, and/or other odds and ends that might support you in creatively personalizing the snail mail you send out <3

as well as my Etsy shop, which hosts listings for postcard bundles, themed ephemera and craft kits, pen pal kits, and sticker bundles <3

---

An upcoming event

Soon: a Love Letter Workshop with the Rainbow Arts Collective, March 22nd 5-7pm at the Equality Community Center in Portland, Maine, sliding scale $10-$45, spaces limited: register here <3

---

A low stakes way to support my work

I don’t ever want to gatekeep what I share in my Substack, but these postings do take time to compile—sometimes quite a bit of time—so I decided that this may be a good alternative. If you would like to “tip” me for any of the time it took to write this, if you felt moved by it, you can buy me a coffee <3

---